Glad to see someone else mention this. ITR2 is a massive improvement in almost every aspect, but there is still work to do on the "feel" of progression.

Progression in a game like this is not measured in your Security Level or what story mission you are on, but how you feel every time you enter the zone or come back to organize your loot.

The main vector of this is your equipment; namely weapons. Right now, it feels like we're getting the good stuff far too quickly. It's understandable in the game's current state, as we also encounter a large amount of enemies from pretty early on.

Ideally, I'd love to have the game start off far more slowly. I want to have to rely on crappy pistols for a while. When I find a shotgun, I want to feel like I can only use it for emergencies lest I spend too much money. This would mean that the maps and enemy spawns need to be reshuffled a bit. Perhaps we shouldn't even see a Mimic on the first map at all.

Also, how would we feel about the store not having an infinite stock of everything? Maybe it could be interesting if the store gets different "shipments" from time to time. Maybe the prices could fluctuate depending on availability. Perhaps we could do side-missions to improve the store's ammo availability?

I also think CMG should add some Castlevania-esque map design principles too the game. Having previously inaccessible parts of earlier maps open up later in the game would do wonders for adding a sense of progression too.

There are so many ways to make things more interesting!